


reset

by orta



Category: NieR: Automata (Video Game)
Genre: Self-Doubt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-25 15:27:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10767081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orta/pseuds/orta
Summary: 2B starts to doubt her programming.  (endgame spoilers)





	reset

She receives the order.  She locates her target.  It’s not difficult.  The scanner is assigned to her for maintenance, so he doesn’t look particularly surprised when she enters his quarters while he’s accessing the terminal.  And he doesn’t really have time to be surprised when she draws her sword and sheathes it right in his spine.  A clean, quick cut.

Not exactly literally clean, but the maintenance crew would take care of the stains on the floor.  Tomorrow, he’ll be rebooted and returned to his room and he'll smile at her if they pass each other between missions and no one would be the wiser.

  
  
  


She’s been assigned to quite a few different targets, D types, G types, even other B types.  She’s had to dispatch of them only rarely, only once if they’ve transgressed that far.

She’s been assigned to this S type four times now and she’s had to dispatch him every single time.

He’s been formatted and returned to her every time from base settings, but she’s starting to wonder if she can pick out some consistencies and subtle differences to each iteration she meets.  The way he calls her ‘ma’am’, never her designation.  The patient tone of his voice as he talks her through her diagnostics.  The way he never, never sees it coming when she cuts him down, the way his face flickers between confusion and recognition when she executes him and watches his body collapse at her feet.

  
  
  


It’s been a month since she saw him last, longer than she’s used to.  And that disorients her.  She may be assigned to different subjects, but the assignments themselves are largely the same.  Her subjects are easy to get along with, in the sense that they don’t get in her way and they focus on the mission and they adhere to protocol so she rarely has to dispose of them.

And then there’s 9S, who she’s been paired up with nearly six times in a row and has had to dispatch every single time.  

And it’s been a month since she’s seen him.  

Part of her wonders if his model will be retired.  Clearly there’s something faulty with him, that he’s had to be reset so often.  On the other hand, he’s remarkably clever and proficient.  She would know, she’s worked with him the most.  She’s watched him bring in rare raw data on even their most innocuous scouting missions.  She’s always had to dispose of him shortly afterwards.

It’s been a month and she’s slightly disturbed by how much she’s been wondering about him.  And then she’s called into her new assignment and reports to the terminal to meet her subject and there he is, and before he could even reintroduce himself she’s faltering over his name.

He tilts his head to one side, curious and politely confused.  “Have we met?”

Shit, she nearly jeopardized her mission.  “No.”

“Really?  Hey, what did you call me just now?”

She’s at a slight loss.  “Your name.”

“Yeah, but it sounded kind of... different?  I’m 9S.” He seems to brighten up a little, as if something occurs to him.  “Not that I’d mind if you call me Nines, if it’s easier for you.”

She stares at him, nonplussed.  “It’s fine.”

“Aw, are you sure?  I kind of like it now.”

“Really?”

He grins.  “Yeah.”

She tries out the nickname.  “Nines.” And it’s almost ridiculous how happy it seems to make him.  She doesn’t see the point of it at all.

The name turns sour on her tongue when she has to execute him again, two months later.  She has no idea why killing Nines rather than killing 9S feels... different.  By any other name, it should be just as easy.

  
  
  


“2B,” he says, sitting on the edge of a bridge.  “Have you ever tried to fish?”

He might as well be asking a snake what it thought of tap dancing.  She’d never thought of fish, ever, in her life.  She vaguely knows that they’re an aquatic animal that... that  _ exists _ , she supposes, but that’s about all the general information she has in her data bank.  She’s a combat model built for fighting machines and executing androids.  She and fish may as well exist on different planets.

Nines just laughs.  “That’s silly, 2B.  You’re both on earth.  Sounds like the same planet to me.” He leans back against a rail and looks out happily at the sea.  “Humans used to catch and eat fish ages ago.  I’ve been experimenting with the pod and I think I’ve come up with an algorithm that’ll simulate a lure and capture them.  Want to give it a try?”

“Metabolizing organic material is not necessary,” she points out.

“Yeah, we don’t have to eat it.  It can be catch and release.  It’ll be fun!”

“Fun?”

He beams at her, hopeful.  “Come on, try it!  I’ll install the code on your pod, too.”

She’s pretty sure it’s prohibited to modify their support pods, but it’s not an executable offense, so she wouldn’t know.  And that’s a relief, so much so that she lets him install the fishing extension on her pod.  They’re finished with their reconnaissance for the day, so she keeps him company as they cast their pods out and enjoy the waves and salt wind of the ocean.

They catch four fish, three blowfish from Nines and one coelacanth from her.  For some reason, he seems ridiculously pleased with this.  “I caught more, so I win.”

She wasn’t even aware this had been a competition.  Anyway, he may have caught more, but hers is bigger, she points out.  “Quantity over quality.”

He stares at her, then grins.  “Aw, 2B!  I bet mine taste better, if we were human and could eat them.”

“Humans  _ really _ used to eat these?”

“I’m pretty sure.”

They stare at the bucket holding their catch, watch the silvery creatures flicker in cloudy water.  Nines catches her skeptical look.  “Maybe they’re actually delicious.”

“They look... slimy.”

Nines laughs, and the two of them lower the bucket down to the water to let the fish swim free.

  
  
  


She catches a twinfish one day and shows it to him in a temporary burst of inexplicable pride.  It had taken her nearly fifteen minutes to land the creature, and she just wanted to... show him...

He’s impressed.  “Woow, 2B.  I didn’t know you knew how to fish!” He beams up at her through his visor.  “Could you teach me?”

Something cold runs down her spine like ice water.  She reintroduces the algorithm into his pod.  She lets the twinfish free.

Later that evening, she receives her order.

It’s almost a relief to go and find him and dispatch him as soon as possible.  Haste, or something like it, makes her hands shake as she plunges her sword into his stomach.  Gutting him, like a fish.

  
  
  


She wonders, sometimes, if he’s ever been assigned to other executioners.  If another android’s blade has ever sliced into his neck, if another’s weapon has ever cut the light out of his eyes.  The thought of it makes her—

_ desperate, furious _ —

Emotions are prohibited, so she wouldn’t know.

She starts to fantasize of what she could do to improve her executions.  Maybe traditional methods aren’t enough.  Maybe severing the spine is too conventional.  She could shock him with her pod’s laser, trap him in an EMP barrier, take her blade and cut through each vital organ and system to find out which would be the fastest, most efficient way to to shut him down, which would be the one that would  _ work _ so she’d never have to do this again...

It’s affecting her functionality.  Even her operator notices it.

“Um, 2B.” 6O twists at her hands.  Her eyes flicker from 2B’s face to the floor, avoiding eye contact even with the visor.  “How have you been doing?”

“Satisfactory.”

“Is that really true?”

Her operator knows her better than that.  She stays quiet.

“You know you can talk to me if you need anything, right?  Or if something is bothering you.  I know you have a hard job, so if I could do anything, anything at all...”

It should be impossible, but her blood runs cold at the thought of telling 6O about her assignments.  6O knows only the overview.

There’s no way she could ever tell 6O about her executions.

“It’s fine.”

“Really?”

She tries to smile.  She knows 6O wouldn’t buy it.  “I can take care of it.”

6O is frowning, she could tell, even under that veil.  “Also, just so you know?  If your current assignment is ever too stressful, you can tell me.  I can request a transfer—”

A transfer.  From 9S.  They’d assign him to a different executioner— “ _ No _ .”

She must have sounded more insistent than she’d meant to be.  6O stares at her.  “Are you sure?”

“I’m certain.”

She has to keep this job.  And maybe one day, she could fix it.

  
  
  


It takes 40 executions until it hits her.  He’s not the faulty element here.

She is.

This is her job, and she’s starting to fear it.  9S is carrying out his objective correctly: scan old world systems, collect data, hack the enemy.  He has his directive, and she has hers: destroy machines, protect her subject.  Until the time comes and she’s given the order to execute him instead.

It’s what she’s built for, programmed for,  _ exists _ for.  If she can’t do her job, they’ll format her next.  Yorha is a massive ticking military machine.  Every part of it works in brutal harmony, or things might just fall apart.

If she’s starting to doubt her programming, she’s the weak link in the system.

9S does his part.  She has to, too.  She knows it.

But knowing it doesn’t make it any easier.

  
  
  


She wonders what it must be like, getting terminated like he does.  Where does their consciousness go once the data stream is cut off?  The self that’s separate from the body, which is replaceable, and their memories and code, which are transferable and backupable and viable for manipulation.  9S always prioritizes her, syncs her data first when connecting to the Bunker.  His own data stream is always cut short with her blade.  That dead end data of that iteration, memories and code and personal processes, gone.  And then they reload a new AI from base settings all over again—

When her body is destroyed, she loses seconds of her consciousness stream before they boot her back up in a new body.

When 9S is destroyed—executed—that consciousness stream is...

Maybe it’s the same for her.  Even if all her memories are transferred, even if all she loses are seconds or a minute in the stream if uploading is delayed... maybe it still matters.  Maybe a part of her or a whole of her is irreparably gone, beyond the replaceable nature of her body.  Maybe there’s an aspect of the self that’s lost, beyond her body that can be destroyed over and over again, beyond her data that can be copied and reuploaded and edited and she would never even know.  Maybe something is lost every time she’s careless enough to be fatally sliced by an enemy’s weapon or clipped by a headshot bullet or activates her black box.  Maybe she’s not the same person she was before the detonation.  Maybe she’s not the same as she was a day before, or a week, or even an hour—

There’s a self beyond data and memories and the body that is created and destroyed over and over again every time they are destroyed or transferred or executed, and she can’t save it.  She can’t even try.  She’s a player and arbiter and executioner in this endless cycle, they all are, and there’s no way to break free.

  
  
  


“2B, do you have a second?  I need to tell you something.”

The moment he trusts her is the moment he dooms himself.  He almost reminds her of 6O, when she’d approached her wanting to help.  But in his case, he’s only ticking down the last remaining seconds of his own life.

“I was proofing our last upload to the Bunker when I found this back door to the server and—”

_ Directive: dispatch the target immediately. _

Understood, she thinks.  She moves almost without thinking.  He’s still mid-sentence, spilling Yorha confidential data even as his blood starts to spill down her blade.  He looks at her, vaguely surprised but not betrayed.  Somehow, that’s worse.

“2B...?”

His legs buckle.  She supports him and gently eases him to the ground as he shudders death throes against her shoulder.

She has this overwhelming, inexplicable urge to apologize to him.  It’s irrational.  She’s only performing her directive, and so is he.  There’s no reason for her to feel regret, or loss, or empty ice-cold pain.

Emotions are unnecessary.

His body is warm and limp in her arms as she quietly lowers him down.

Ah.  She’s definitely the faulty one here, after all.

  
  
  


Maybe if she kills him enough, she’ll get used to it.

  
  


She only wonders how many times it’ll take.


End file.
